374 THE POORER TROPICAL REGIONS

almost surely have led to death from malignant malaria, and even as it
was, many died.

Along with the trying climate and disease go a host of insggjggsts
and other little irritations. In Liberia, as a long resident puts it, moths cat_
upjdothing; cocKroacEes devour bookbindings and swarm in a L detached
cookhouse which" takes" the' place "of a kitchen; rats^ climb to seemingly
inaccessible locations and leave nothing but the fragments of the treasures
they have eaten; white ants consume the sills of houses and the rungs of
chairs, which collapse' mostTunexpectedly; driver^ants sweep through the
house, and every other creature from man to lizard must vacate even if
it be in the midst of rain and the dead of night; jiggers" bore under the
skin of the foot and lay their eggs; fleas bite; trie damp heat produces
r^sh^ against which the lightest clothing feels like nettles. These things
and a hundred others are irritating enough at any time, but through the
blur of a "touch of sun" or the haze of a burning fever they assume pro-
portions out of all reason. The odors, the mists, the sights, the sounds get
on the jD.erycs; the heavy^drooping, silent, impenetrable green forest every-
where shuts £ne,in like a smoAeringgrave^^the mind grows sick, and
die bo3y follows. YeFlKe~Bresff is oftensurpassingly beautiful. IFno
exertion is neeHecfthe tempefaUirTIs"rr^ andfnot especially

uncomfortable, for it often rises no higher than 85° in the deep_shade_of
the forest. The warm rain fccjs most sogtin^^ the head an4

shoulde7s. It is the hot, damp, sleepless nights and the parasitic diseases

, . ._—r - ^ --- „-£, °- - ~ -- j- T-_ --

and nsects wmcn

Scarcity of Beasts of Burden^_ A second great handicap in equatorial
rainfoFeTtS'ls 1EeT52Sculty ~oFteeping domestic animals even in the clear-
ings. Noxious insects plagueanimals almost as badly as they plague
man. For example, in Targe parts of tropical Africa the bite of the tsetse
fly not only causes the deadly sleeping sickness in man, but also is fatal
to domestic^animajs, i o_rcvcn jhe jdonkey is not immune. Even IE animals
«cape' disea^,^they rarely thrive^for what little grass can grow among
the luxuriant trees is usually so rank and coarse_thatit is not nutritious,
of Transportation . The difficulty of Seeping domestic ani-
er great handicap of the equatorial forests, namely,
the difficulty of transportation. If the natives attempt to travel through
the forest without roads, they encounter swamps, great projecting roots,
dense thickets, and other obstructions as bad as anything our ancestors
met when they first settled in America. They are also likely to be at- "
tacked by snakes, as well as poisonous insects. Suppose that someone has
energy enough to cleaTaway the forest for a road. New plants spring up
almost overnight, and prow 10 to 20 feet in a year. The map of Quintana
ROD, the densely forested and almost uninhabited southern part of the